When Karma posted an invitation to participate in a Photography Scavenger Hunt I immediately thought ‘How fun!’ fully intending to give it a go despite the short time frame. But then, life got away from me (as it tends to do) and before I knew it, the deadline was looming and I had little accomplished. 😦

Turns out, I wasn’t the only one having difficulty so Karma extended the submission deadline to March 6th – hooray! 🙂

Right from the get go I planned on posting the images in a collage and when I went to assemble the structure itself, I realized I needed a few more images than the 12 in the hunt to make it visually appealing. (Birgitte, my dear, you do make it look so easy! 🙂 )

Scavenger Hunt Collage

All but TWO images were taken specifically for the scavenger hunt. The two in question are previously un-posted images that just fit the bill (details follow).

(2). Big Round Clockface-Didn’t have to travel far for this one! Here is one of three large clock faces painted in a row on a decorative board in my living room. One clock is set to PST, one to EST and one to GMT (since hubby travels often to the UK).

Constructed in 1997, the Veterans Memorial Bridge connects Beverly to Salem and rises high enough over the Danvers River to allow boats to easily pass underneath without the need for a drawbridge (huge improvement over the old bridge).

The lower bridge seen in the background is used by the MBTA commuter trains.

(6). Stripes – This image is from February of 2010. While standing on the other side of our chain-link fence I thought the layering of textures and directional lines would make for an interesting photograph. Back then, I never did anything with it. I guess it was simply waiting for the right moment. 🙂

I happened to have my neighbor’s mailbox in my possession as it required refurbishment from all the winter abuse. (I built it for her as a birthday gift oh-so-many years ago). So, while it underwent repairs, I snapped a few stylized images of the front. Can’t get more literal than this, huh? 😉

So much of my time lately has been spent testing our swimming pool water to get things all chemically in balance that I decided to photograph it!

It was quite breezy today and what first caught my attention were a few small orange flowers that had been blown into the pool and were being tossed about on the rippled water. However, it wasn’t too long before I began to notice some interesting reflections, so the floating flowers were abandoned as I began to randomly capture the reflected patterns and colors forming in the moving water.

At first I went for the obvious…poolside annual flowers making floral reflections. (Hey, I like flowers, what can I say?) The more I shot however, the more ‘loose’ my shooting became and my full-on right-brain process kicked into high gear.

While photographing rain-soaked hosta leaves, I was already drawn to their wave-like form. So, when a small black gnat decided to do some surfing, well, it’s times like this you simply cannot believe what you are seeing through the lens!

Since the foliage colors of this particular hosta are a variegation of green, white and yellow – not the hues that evoke a strong feeling of the sea – I decided a color change was necessary to successfully convey the ‘surfing gnat’ idea. So, the image was first converted to black & white and then tinted using blue. I also bumped up tonal contrast a bit using Color Efex Pro.

Gnarly, dude! 🙂

——————————————————————————————————————————

04/21/10 Update

Sean Kane requested a close up of the ‘surfing gnat’ so, here he is! 🙂

Like this:

Copyright Notice: All Rights Reserved

ALL images and content contained within this domain are the exclusive property of Tracy Milkay/Milkay Photography and are protected under United Sates and International Copyright Law.

MY IMAGES DONOT BELONG TO THE PUBLIC DOMAIN AND ARE NOTFREE TO USE OR REDISTRUBUTE! THIS INCLUDES PINTEREST. PLEASE DONOT PIN MY IMAGES! Thank you.

It is against the law to copy, reproduce, redistribute, project, alter, manipulate or use any images or content in ANY WAY without the express written permission of Tracy Milkay/Milkay Photography. In addition, use of ANY image as the basis for another photographic concept or illustration (digital, artist rendering or alike) is a violation of the United States and International Copyright laws.

Contact me for permission before saving, using or redistributing ANY of my images for personal or commercial use.